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Hoping a Big Win Gets the Confidence Going and Other Cubs Notes

Chicago Cubs News

The Little Girl is trying to “well actually” me on the pronunciation of the word “cocoa”. That A at the end is tripping her up. Which reminds me of a funny thing about The Wife that I’m going to share here because she probably won’t read this: she enunciates “cocoa” as co-co. Like, equal full weight on each half, as though she were mentioning two people who were both co-chairs of a committee (“the co-co chair had this to say”).

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It cracks me up every time to the point that whenever she is forced to say the word, she gives me a death stare before she even completes the word, because she knows I’m going to say something.

Love you, dear!

  • Day Three of the Draft is underway, and we’ll track it for you here.
  • Although the Cubs won big last night, like an ugly loss, it counts for just one game. And, on the season, the Cubs have still lost as many as they’ve won. Hopefully, though, a breezy, fun win like last night gets the guys in a confident frame of mind, and starts turning the bats around. It’s not as if we’ve ever doubted whether the talent was there – we know it is. The question is whether the funks several of the players are in will turn around in time to rattle off a whole lot of wins before another NL Central team finally gets going (if that happens at all). It’s good that the Cubs feel a sense of urgency to win (CSN), so long as they don’t continue to press. A game like last night’s can help in that regard.
  • Kris Bryant’s big night kept his consistent 147 wRC+ afloat. For his whole career, in fact, Bryant’s rolling 15-game wRC+ has been remarkably consistent, hovering constantly around the 150 mark.
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(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
  • There is no timetable for Kyle Hendricks’ return from finger tendinitis after an unsuccessful throwing session yesterday. Joe Maddon says the Cubs want Hendricks to be able to pitch pain free before he goes back out there, and that wasn’t the case yesterday (CSN). Presumably, they’ll try again in a few days and see where things stand. As we discussed last night, in the meantime, it means more start(s) for Mike Montgomery, and maybe slightly more urgency for the Cubs to pursue pitching.
  • When he got the morning text about the lineup, Anthony Rizzo, who was leading off, texted the group, “1-0 guys.” (ESPN) He called his shot.
  • The pitcher win is a hopelessly broken and misleading statistic, but I know it’s important to many folks, so congrats to Jon Lester on number 150:
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  • Of more importance to me was how good Lester looked last night. Sure, maybe you might prefer that happened on a night when the offense didn’t have 14 runs in them, but you’d be a fool to complain about a great Cubs pitching performance on the road. They haven’t had many of those this season.
  • The Cubs will be selling preserved ivy leaves from the 2016 season if you want a piece of the park and have $200 to spare.
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  • Odd history:

  • Sale, baby:

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Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Editor of Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation.